After 250 years, do US citizens still believe in the American Dream?

**Anthony Zurcher** (0:00)
Hello, it's Anthony, and you're about to hear Americast. We're delighted to have you with us. And if you enjoy what you hear, please do consider subscribing to the podcast. That way, you'll never miss an episode. Now, on with today.

**Justin Webb** (0:13)
It is 250 years since that pivotal year, that year that 13 American colonies declared independence from Great Britain, 1776, the year that everything changed. Everything changed for them, for the actual people doing the signing. Everything changed, of course, on that continent, but also everything changed, you could argue, for the whole world. So here is the question. Has it been a success? Has the American experiment succeeded or failed? Or is the jury out? Welcome to Americast.
Americast.

**SPEAKER_5** (0:51)
Americast from BBC News.

**Justin Webb** (0:53)
You hear that sound?

**SPEAKER_6** (0:54)
Oh, I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:58)
We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it. This is a big cover-up, and this administration is engaged in it.

**Justin Webb** (1:05)
This guy has Trump Derangement Syndrome.

**Barack Obama** (1:08)
I have four words for you.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:11)
Turn the volume up.

**Justin Webb** (1:17)
Hello, it's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of Americast in London, England.

**Anthony Zurcher** (1:21)
And it's Anthony in the American headquarters of Americast here at the BBC Bureau in Washington, DC.

**Justin Webb** (1:26)
And we can get straight to our subject because listening to us and on the line is Heather Cox Richardson. Heather Cox Richardson is Professor of History at Boston College, used to teach at MIT. She's published a load of books about American history. She's got a substack. She's been a very prolific person on substack for many years. She's got three million subscribers, which is going something. She's also got this 250 to 250 project. So this is a series of YouTube videos that look at specific moments, characters in the history of the US. So, Heather, thank you for talking to us. Welcome to Americast.

**Heather Cox Richardson** (2:05)
It's a pleasure to be here.

**Justin Webb** (2:07)
Can I start with a really simple question and a positive question? Because I think we need to be positive. I want to be positive about America on its 250th birthday. And it's this question, what is there to celebrate? What should be celebrated? What can be celebrated?

**Heather Cox Richardson** (2:22)
Well, what can be celebrated today is what we have always celebrated, is the ability of individual people to determine their future and to determine the government under which they live. And for all the terrible things that are happening in the United States right now, what you are seeing is a rebirth of that sense of agency and the desire to create a better nation.

**Anthony Zurcher** (2:41)
There was something that Barack Obama, a quote he liked to always cite, and that was about the arc of history bending towards justice. And I think there are a lot of people on the left when Obama was elected president who felt that was true.

**Barack Obama** (2:53)
Some of you who had been covering my campaigns know this is one of my favorite expressions was Dr. King's expression that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. We have to believe that ultimately justice will prevail.

**Anthony Zurcher** (3:08)
Do you think now at the 250th anniversary with Donald Trump in office that people on the left still feel that or do you think that there's a disillusionment with the direction of the country?

**Heather Cox Richardson** (3:20)
Well, a couple of things. First of all, I'm really careful about the way we use the term the left here because of course the left actually is an embrace of a kind of political economy that would destroy liberal democracy. And the United States of America really has never had a lot of people who are firmly in that camp. So what you're really talking about are those people who we used to refer to as the liberal consensus, those people who are trying to shore up American democracy. And what's interesting, I think, and I can't speak for other people. I'm speaking as an observer of what's happening in American politics. What is interesting in this moment are certainly the people who say that's it, we're done, it's time to hang up our spurs.
And the people who say we're in a really hard moment, but we understand that we have the agency to change that moment. And one of the things that you are seeing is the rise of a reexamination of people like Barbara Jordan, who in 1974 was one of the people who really held the Republicans' feet to the fire to impeach Richard Nixon. Or you're seeing the real celebration of those people who stepped forward in hard times in a way that we haven't for a long time. And part of that as well, I think, speaks to how many people are interested in history again for in a way that they haven't been for a long time.